The Song of Protest: Reassessing the Song of Songs *

Abstract

The Song of Songs presents us with an interesting collection of ideas which are offered in the delightful form of poetry. Many of these ideas are seen to take an opposing position to that which is taken in the rest of Old Testament. There is much to suggest that these ideas might have-carried protest against prevailing attitudes in a patriarchally controlled society. This protest was presented as a playful alternative to dominant views, thereby constituting a positive ‘song of protest’ within the corpus of Old Testament literature.